Lost in Transylvania

Saturday evening's event, Lost in Transylvania, took place at the restaurant of Luigi Van Helsing, believed to be a somewhat distant cousin of the noted vampire hunter from Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula. Once again, the gothic, macabre ambiance was expertly created by Lynne of Insomniac's Attic. Chilling, very chilling indeed!

First, we enjoyed a signature cocktail of vodka and cranberry juice, complete with a skelly arm stir-stick and an eyeball hidden deep in its bloody depths. Mmmmm, delicious! I drank mine and My Rare One's, since she was the designated broomstick driver.

The rather unnerving eyeball was a lychee fruit stuffed with a couple of blueberries for an iris. Its smooth but chewy texture is as close to a real eyeball as I ever want to get.

Luigi and his staff produced a wonderful buffet upon which we ghouls, witches, vampires, gypsies and cowboys (well, this is Alberta, you know!) feasted long into the night --

Here's a tantalizing taste of the very stylish table decor --

My Rare One and I had toyed with the idea of bringing along our squeaky rubber rats, Cardinal Ratzinger and Archbishop Fang, but ultimately decided to leave them at home so we wouldn't have to babysit them all evening. As it turned out, I was delighted to have the little rat skeleton to play with instead! And hey, do you like my bracelet?

Now, you know I don't post current, identifiable photos of me on this blog. But I'm making an exception in this post so you can see more of Lynne's wonderfully spooky decor! Yes, the waving witch at the end of the table is me, my face only partially obscured by the black mourning veil of my hat.

And oh, what the hell, here's a couple more revealing photos! First of all, this is Lynne in her gorgeous Victorian mourning dress (which she sewed using an antique pattern), along with My Rare One and me --

And next, here's our "Photo Booth Coffin" shot! My Rare One clearly has not had much practice praying, judging from her awkward hand positioning. Oh, wait a minute . . . it just occurred to me that perhaps she's not praying for my immortal soul after all, but is instead tenting her fingers while chortling "EX-cellent" like Mr Burns on The Simpsons. Well, that puts a different light on things, doesn't it? D'oh!

[Photos #1, #2, #4, #5 and #6 © My Rare One, October 2017; photo #3 by Insomniac's Attic; I'm not sure who took Photos #7 and #8 but thank you for doing so!]

A Grave Affair

Last weekend My Rare One and I donned our spookiest black rags, our biggest witch's hats, hopped on our brooms and flew down to southern Alberta for a couple of fabulous Halloween events! A Grave Affair was held on Friday night and Lost in Transylvania took place on Saturday night.

Our favourite vampiress of graveyard pallor, Lynne of Insomniac's Attic, created the perfect macabre, gothic ambiance for both events. The two hosting restaurants each provided an array of delicious food and special drinks to fatten up our skeletal frames. A fun psychic/fortune teller graced both evenings and we met some great new people too!

Lynne created an absinthe bar for the first event, A Grave Affair. At one time, absinthe was the infamously evil alcohol of fin-de-siècle Paris, beloved of poets, artists and bohemians. Distilled from anise, fennel, wormwood and other botanicals, its unique colour resulted in its nickname, "the green fairy." By World War I, absinthe was banned throughout Europe and the USA as a "dangerously addictive psychoactive drug and hallucinogen" (Wikipedia) although its effects appear to have been greatly exaggerated by the fearful bourgeoisie. However, it does have a high alcohol content, so it should only be taken in moderation.

Serving absinthe requires a fascinating ritual of preparation, which Lynne expertly performed. First, the green absinthe is poured into the bottom of a "reservoir" glass. A special, flat absinthe spoon is then placed to rest horizontally on top of the glass.

A long, rectangular sugar cube is put on top of the spoon. Here's the bowlful of special absinthe sugar cubes that Lynne used --

Then the glass, spoon and sugar cube are placed under one of two long silver spouts on an "absinthe fountain," seen in this next photo. The fountain slowly, oh so slowly, drips ice-cold water onto the sugar cube, dissolving it through the perforations of the spoon into the absinthe below. Adding sugar water in this way to the absinthe both sweetens it a little, taking the edge off its natural bitterness, and dilutes the absinthe, so it's not as potent when the alcohol hits your system.

Here's a photo that My Rare One took of one of the two absinthe fountains at the event. Oh, that eerie glow! I am so thrilled to have had the opportunity to drink absinthe prepared in the traditional manner! It's a rare experience and a special treat indeed.

And speaking of treats, the Rockyview Hotel served up a staggering assortment of delicious appetizers, prepared by their charming young Chilean chef who popped out of the kitchen to greet everyone later in the evening. His artistry culminated in this chocolate coffin brownie in blood-red cherry sauce. Mmmmm! It was, of course, to die for!

Thursday's post -- Lost in Transylvania! And here's a little teaser . . . ALL WILL BE REVEALED! So don't miss it!

[Photos #1 and #4 by Insomniac's Attic Facebook, photo #2 from Wikipedia, photos #3, #5 and #6  © My Rare One, October 2017]

Vilna Pool Hall and Barbershop

In June when I drove up to Kalyna Country, one of the small towns I stopped in was Vilna, Alberta. The town has done a beautiful job of preserving and restoring its old pool hall and barbershop. I simply HAD to stop and see it because, you know, I DO love playing pool!

Built in 1921, the structure also contained the town's barbershop at the front of the building. These counters and cabinets are all original and now display various artefacts of past times.

A restored barber's chair sits facing a small sink and mirrors in an alcove near the wood-burning stove which heated the building in the winter.

The pool hall still features its four original turn-of-the-century pool tables -- the two large ones at the back for snooker and the two smaller ones at the front for billiards. When not in use, the tables are covered so as to keep the felt in good condition. The ceiling and walls are the original wooden lathe construction. The building also has its original oiled wood floors (oiled periodically to keep the dust down).

The pool hall and barbershop were, of course, an exclusively male bastion for much of its history. No women allowed!

According to the town's website:

There were lots of fights in the pool hall. "The walls were red with blood" from time to time and several cues were broken. Women never entered the pool hall in the early days, as it was "no place for a lady".

However, ladies were allowed to enter an associated dance hall in which live bands apparently played "snappy music" -- but it soon burned down after some riotous event and was not rebuilt.

The pool hall still has many of its original cues and balls, along with their respective cabinetry. In the old days, it cost 5 cents for a game of billiards using Boston balls (solids and stripes) and 10 cents for a game of snooker.

You can see the cabinet's antique veneer in this (sorry, kinda crooked) close-up, plus the old Boston balls mixed in with the newer ones. The old balls have larger numbers, circled in black.

Unfortunately, My Rare One was in Manitoba at the time so she was not on this trip with me, or we definitely would have rented a table to play a couple of games! Because yes, this is STILL a FUNCTIONING pool hall, not just a recognized historical attraction!

[All photos © Debra She Who Seeks, June 2017]

Small Prairie Town Travels

This seems to have been my summer for poking around various small prairie towns in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. I'll post about some of them over the course of this month.

In June, I had occasion to drive a couple of hours northeast of Edmonton to the region known in Alberta as "Kalyna Country." This is rolling, fertile farm country where the Parkland area of the prairies meets the Boreal Forest. Historically, the area was settled a little over a hundred years ago by Ukrainian immigrants, who are still the dominant cultural group in the area. Their enduring presence can be seen most strikingly in many beautiful small Orthodox Christian churches, like these two in Smoky Lake with their silver and copper onion domes:

"Kalyna" means "highbush cranberries" in Ukrainian, so I assume they must be plentiful in this region (or were plentiful when the settlers first arrived). However, pumpkins are clearly KING in Smoky Lake nowadays, judging from these giant pumpkin sculptures in Pumpkin Park.

An appropriate image for Halloween month, wouldn't you say?

[All photos © Debra She Who Seeks, June 2017]

Rockyview Hotel and Texas Gate Bar 'n Grill

So as I said in an earlier post, Cochrane is a pretty kickass, happenin' kind of place in the heart of Alberta's cowboy country just north of Calgary. Its historic town centre has great gift shops, restaurants and MacKay's ice cream (always a huge lineup!) Plus it has the vintage Rockyview Hotel, built in 1904 and still operating!

I have fond childhood memories of my grandparents' country hotel in Saskatchewan which was of a similar vintage, so I was looking forward to staying at the Rockyview. The owner has done a marvelous job of ensuring that the hotel remains a tribute to Cochrane's heritage and history.

Several of the guest rooms have been modernized and renovated as "theme rooms" to reflect local historical culture. There's the Trapper's room, CPR Railway room, Victorian room (it's apparently haunted!) and the room we had -- which I think of as the Pioneer room. And do you know who was the decorator for the hotel's theme room project? Lynne of Insomniac's Attic!

The Pioneer room has vintage furniture like I remember from my grandparents' hotel. Look at that old radiator, the horse collar on the wall, and the reproduction mini ewer-and-bowl set!

And lovely framed doilies on the wall!

The Rockyview Hotel also houses the Texas Gate Bar 'n Grill. We played some pool at the Bar and had breakfast at the Grill. And OMG, was that breakfast good! Can't remember when I last enjoyed a classic brekkie so much! Oh, and I should also mention that the Grill has an exquisite pressed tin ceiling which I just love!

All in all, a marvelous little foray into Alberta's past and present!

[All photos by Debra She Who Seeks, May 2017]

The Beverage of the Gods

Accompanying the resurgent popularity of paganism, heathenry, vikings and craft beer-and-wine making is a newfound interest in mead. Mead is made from honey, can be produced as beer or wine, and is the traditional beverage of the Germanic-Norse gods. Apparently it's all they drink in Valhalla.

So while My Rare One and I were in Water Valley last weekend, we took the opportunity to go to Alberta's finest commercial maker and purveyor of mead -- the Fallentimber Meadery!

We enjoyed a lovely tasting of various types of mead while browsing around the sales centre. I came home with a bottle of traditional mead wine and a couple of small bottles of their latest product -- meadjito -- like a regular mojito but with mead instead of rum. It's carbonated, has a minty citrus taste, and will be very refreshing on a hot summer's night, we figure.

[All images from the internet except photos #4 and #6 by Debra She Who Seeks, May 2017]

Southern Alberta Road Trip, Part 3

Here's the conclusion of my little travelogue series --

Next, My Rare One and I went to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, which is located near Fort Macleod. Long before horses and guns were introduced to North America via European contact, buffalo jumps were how native peoples mass-harvested enough buffalo meat and hides to survive the harsh winters.

Disguising themselves as buffalo calves and menacing wolves, the First Nations hunters would induce a herd of buffalo to stampede off a high cliff. Not any old cliff would do, though. It had to have a nearby stream (for processing the kill afterwards) and face the right wind direction so the buffalo couldn't detect their hunters by smell. Archaeologists think that the Head-Smashed-In site was one of the best buffalo jumps in the Canadian west.

This is the actual buffalo jump site as it appears today -- the steep drop off the cliff has now filled in somewhat as the landscape slowly changed over its 5000 year use as a buffalo jump.

Head-Smashed-In overlooks the flat plains of the Old Man River basin. You can see a modern wind farm in the distance.

In the late 1800s, the greed and guns of white Canadians and Americans destroyed the huge buffalo herds of the plains in a few short years, devastating the native cultures which depended on the buffalo for survival. First Nations in the west are only now starting to recover. Today, their leaders say that "education is the new buffalo" to provide everything the people need.

Our final stop was to view the Frank Slide located in the Rocky Mountains' Crowsnest Pass. In 1903, the top peak of the mountain in the photo unexpectedly shifted, broke off and avalanched downwards in the middle of the night, wiping out part of the small mining town of Frank and killing 90 people. You can still clearly see the scars where it slid down the mountain.

The rocky debris field of the slide's huge "splash zone" (as it's called) is still a stunning sight. Believe me, these photos do not do it justice.

My Rare One and I both enjoy visiting the cultural heritage sites of our region. History is so fascinating because it shows the inventiveness, artistry and indomitable spirit of those who lived before us on this land.

[All photos © My Rare One, August 2014]

Southern Alberta Road Trip, Part 2

Continuing on with My Rare One's and my recent adventures in southern Alberta --

We traveled down near the American border to visit Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park. It is a small badlands coulee of sandstone cliffs and hoodoos found along the Milk River. For untold generations, it was a gathering place of the Blackfoot people.

It has hundreds of spectacular hoodoo formations created by time, wind and erosion. If you're familiar with southern Alberta, just let me say that the hoodoos of Writing-on-Stone put the hoodoos of Drumheller to shame. There's no comparison!

But what makes Writing-on-Stone even more special are the ancient petroglyphs (drawings) carved into the cliffs by the Blackfoot people. This awesome art was made before the days of first contact with Europeans and tells the stories of epic battles and buffalo hunts. To protect the petroglyphs from being vandalized, entry to the area where they are located is restricted and the petroglyphs may be viewed only under the supervision of a park guide.

Southern Alberta has the reputation of being the redneckiest part of Alberta so just to reinforce that stereotype, here's a photo of a lovely handcrafted antler display that we saw in the nearby town of Milk River. Love the howling wolf garden ornaments beneath it too!

Next we visited Fort Macleod, original home of the Northwest Mounted Police. This paramilitary force was created in 1873 and sent west to control the worst excesses of the frontier whisky and fur trade. Later on, the NWMP was renamed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The Fort has excellent displays of pioneer artifacts and NWMP history.

Local students portray the NWMP and perform a Musical Ride several times each day. As you can see, Mounties originally wore white British pith helmets instead of flat-brimmed brown Stetsons. But the red serge jackets and single-stripe cavalry pants are essentially the same (dress) uniform still worn today by the RCMP.

[All photos © My Rare One, August 2014]